The release date for the Hank Williams biopic I Saw The Light may have been pushed back from November 27th to March 25th, 2016, but at least we finally have a proper trailer for the once highly-anticipated movie. Most of the high hopes that the film could create a resurgence in interest in the life of Hank Williams and possibly in traditional country music in general, and may even walk away with some Oscar nominations for the star Tom Hiddleston, have been mostly dashed after the film was ripped in early reviews. Sony pushing the release back to the notorious part of the year when films they expect to flop are released isn’t a good sign either. Everything is pointing to I Saw The Light being a dud, but the public has yet to be given an opportunity to judge the film for themselves.

Sony’s official reason for pushing the film back is it would give Tom Hiddleston the opportunity to promote it. A previous obligation to work on another film was keeping the British-born actor from making the rounds on the talk show circuit ahead of the original release date. However Hiddleston and the rest of the primary cast did show up for a red carpet event in Nashville on October 17th.

I Saw The Light is directed by Marc Abraham, produced by RatPac Entertainment, and is being distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. It was filmed in October of 2014 in Shreveport, Louisiana. The film also stars Elizabeth Olsen as Audrey (Sheppard) Williams, Bradley Whitford as Fred Rose, Maddie Hasson as love interest Billie Jean, Cherry Jones as Hank’s mother, and Wrenn Schmidt as Bobbie Jett.

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By the way, I was supposed to screen the film at the Austin Film Festival in November. However when the screening time was finally announced, it was set to take place a 7:00 PM on November 4th—the exact same time as the CMA Awards. My stupid luck.

The trailer looks decent. Now we all know that doesn’t mean a whole hill of beans about if the movie is gonna be any good or not. Tom’s acting looks good IMO and Elizabeth Olsen looks and sounds good too. I’m sad that we’ve got to wait until March now. I’d love to see a country music themed movie every couple of years. Not all biopics, but movies based about country music and lifestyles. Crazy Heart was amazing, Country Strong was not (although I did really enjoy the soundtrack.) Since then, there hasn’t really been anything.

As someone who isn’t a huge fan of Hank Williams’ music (well, the songs are great but he’s one of the few artists whose voice I never really could adjust to, so I don’t actively listen to him on a regular basis), I look forward to this film because I do believe Hiddleston is right for the part. He can portray Hank without bias. As an outsider, he feels no reason to redeem or demonize a beloved country icon. I think he’ll be able to portray him as closely to as he really was as any actor could have. The singing might not be what we’re looking for, but I think people need to understand just how unique Hank Williams’ voice really was. Imagine it’s 50 years down the road, and there’s a series that portrays great, non-mainstream songwriters. Can anybody impersonate Chris Knight? How about Ryan Bingham? Jason Isbell? Who would ever be able to capture the dry wit and fierceness of Kacey Musgraves? Who’s going to capture Willie Nelson perfectly?

It just won’t happen, and that’s a good thing, imo. The worst thing an impersonation can be is too perfect.

I know that this came up in another thread, but there was nothing “non-mainstream” about Hank Williams. He was by far the biggest country star of his time, with a string of 11 #1 hits and 35 Top Ten hits, and he was widely recognized as the individual who made country music nationally famous.

That actually looks way better than I expected it to. Love Hiddleston, but did they forget Hank’s grandson looks and sounds just like the guy? Seems like a better fit for the role.

Or did they honestly just expect people not to be excessively sensitive and critical about any movie about Hank freaking Williams?? I’m guessing they just severely underestimated what peoples’ reactions would be

I don’t think the accent is the greatest, and he doesn’t sound like Hank, but Joaquin Phoenix didn’t really sound like Johnny Cash any more than Hiddleston sounds like Hank, I’m much more concerned with their ability to act, and play the roll of their respective characters anyway.

If you go to around 49:30 on this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x527 (11/26 show), you can hear “Why Don’t You Love Me?” from the soundtrack. It sounds significantly better than the live singing clips from the after party (which makes sense; not everyone can knock it out of the park live). Not sure why this was released to a BBC show and we’re not hearing it over here in the states, but it’s interesting listening nonetheless.

March isn’t necessary a bad part of the year for films, that honor goes to January. The move could be based on a desire to release the film in a time with less competition, now that they feel it won’t be award winning.

I would say the chances of that happening are slim. If there was a chance to do that, it has already passed. They would have done that before sending it to film festivals and before the big premier in Nashville. Regardless what the public feels about this movie once it’s released, how it was released was mismanaged. They announced that it was going to be delayed literally the day before the big red carpet premier in Nashville, so there was no chance to move it closer to the release.

The preview gives me a little more hope than the review. The voice is far from perfect, although there was a brief moment or two where Tom hits it pretty good. However, and I’ve said it before, I’m more interested in the portrayal of Hank than I am in his voice. And yes, Hank 3 does sound like his granddaddy, granted more so in his earlier work, but don’t forget that H3 is a singer, not an actor, outside of a small role or 2.

The preview looks pretty good. I will say one thing, the last thing you would want is someone who can sing like Hank, but can’t act playing the part. It is much better to not be dead on with the singing and have a legitimate actor playing the role. Nothing is worse than watching a movie with a half ass acting job.

Sony seems to have it in for this movie! First, the marketing has been abysmal. Second, the huge release delay pushes it even further out of the public eye. Third, the R rating means that you’re cutting your already-limited audience even further and are basically guaranteeing its box office failure. Even Walk the Line had a PG-13 rating, and both Johnny Cash and Hank Sr. shared similar demons and issues. Perhaps we can hope for a better-received, better-managed Hank Sr. biopic within 10-20 years, if they ever want to take a risk on it again! 😛

Good point about the rating NPC. Didn’t notice that before, but you’re totally right about it potentially limiting the audience. You can also say this means they probably portrayed the story more accurately, but if the ‘R’ rating is for an inadvertent nipple or something that was avoidable, it’s just another concern about the mismanagement of this.

And yes, if this one fails (if it hasn’t already), it’s only going to give production people and investors even less reason to fund another Hank biopic. If you ask me, they should immediately make another one, and do it right this time. Get an experienced director and screenplay writer instead of putting all of these tasks in the hands of one person who doesn’t have to answer to anyone but himself.

I saw the movie at the premiere in Nashville. I’d say the the main reason for the R rating was a scene with female frontal nudity. I’d say that the film could have received a PG-13 rating with very minor edits.

At the moment there’s an SCM article on the front page of Reddit, which has funneled a ridiculous amount of traffic to the site. It also caused the server to go down briefly, and so we had to disable all non essential features just to make sure the server stays up. At this point everything is functioning fine. We’ll put the “like” feature back up as soon as everything returns to normal. All the “like” data is stored, so nothing will be lost.

Well, they ALMOST buried his vocals enough to prevent me from determining that I probably sing more like Hank I than this guy. But that isn’t a deal breaker. As long as they capture the tone and feel of the thing. Should still be worth watching on a free HBO preview weekend in a year or so.

I think it would have been awesome for Hank III to have done it. But the chances of that going well were always probably slim. But if it had worked, it would have really worked!

I will go see it just because……. But its sucks to see the Williams family was not even consulted I bealive Hank jr and Hank 3 could have made it a lot deeper they got old hanks blood in them what does Rodney crowell know about hank Williams???? other than he once was a good songwriter and had a half a dozen hit songs himself and obviously had a price….. What a totally messed up chance to make a masterpiece in favor for a half ass film

Looks good to me. Hank Williams is the only one who sounds like Hank Willaims. Loretta Lynn the only one who sounds like Loretta Lynn but Sissy Spacek did a wonderful jog playing her and singing her songs. And Coal Miner’s Daughter was def. a great movie. I expect the same here. Thhe acting is what counts it’s a movie.